Wearable haptic device for cutaneous force and slip speed display

Stable grasp is the result of sensorimotor regulation of forces, ensuring sufficient grip force and the integrity of the held object. Grasping with a prosthesis introduces the challenge of finding the appropriate forces given the engineered sensorimotor prosthetic interface. Excessive force leads to unnecessary energy use and possible damage to the object. In contrast, low grip forces lead to slippage. In order for a prosthetic hand to achieve a stable grasp, the haptic information provided to the prosthesis wearer needs to display these two antagonistic grasp metrics (force and slip) in a quantified way. We present the design and evaluation of a wearable single-actuator haptic device that relays multi-modal haptic information, such as grip force and slip speed. Two belts that are activated in a mutually exclusive manner by the rotation direction of a single motor exert normal force and tangential motion on the skin surface, respectively. The wearable haptic device is able to display normal forces as a tap frequency in the range of approximately 1.5-5.0 Hz and slip speed in the range of 50-200 mm/s. Within these values, users are able to identify at least four stimulation levels for each feedback modality, with short-term training.